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Chauncey, George. Gay New York Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books. 1994.
Summary Chauncey’s ''Gay New York ''looks at how a visible, complex, and continually changing gay male world took shape between 1890 and the beginning of World War II; it was a world that included gay neighborhood enclaves, public dances and other social events, and a host of commercial establishments for gays, ranging from saloons and bars to elegant restaurants. It is, in one sense, the story of the gay male world in New York; but it is also a story of the dominant culture during this time period and reinterprets how we see immigrant, African American, and working class communities, where often gay life took hold. In retelling this story, this book challenges three myths of the gay life before the rise of the gay liberation movement: 1) the myth of isolation (anti-gay hostility prevent the development of gay culture): Chauncey contends, gay men forged an immense gay world of overlapping social networks from private apartments to city streets; 2) the myth of invisibility (even if the gay world existed, it was kept invisible): Chauncey argues that gay men were highly visible in New York in part “because gay life was more integrated into the everyday life of the city in the prewar decades than it would be after WWII” as well as the fact that many gay men pronounced their presence through their style (red ties, bleached hair, etc.) and were reported on in newspapers; 3) the myth of internalization (gay men internalized the dominant culture’s view of them as sick, perverted and immoral): Chauncey shows that many gay men celebrated their difference and even organized to resist anti-gay policing (published articles and books, sent letters to newspaper, and urged jurists and doctors to change their views along with the day-to-day tactics of resistance). All of these myths, Chauncey further notes, are represented and perpetuated by the metaphor of the closet, which is often used to characterize gay life before the advent of gay liberation. However, Chauncey argues (key argument) that until the 1930s a gay world flourished in New York and that is was only with the repression accompanying the repeal of Prohibition and the conformity of the Cold War that the “closet” confining gays was constructed. This “gay world” was lost in history because of how visible it became in the 1920s; by the 1930s and 1940s (and especially during the Cold War in the 1950s) authorities enacted new laws and regulations to limit the visibility of gay culture. Given this, Chauncey argues: “Gay life in New York was less tolerated, less visible to outsiders, and more rigidly segregated in the second third of the century than the first, and that the very severity of the prewar reaction has tended to blind us to the relative tolerance of the prewar years.” (9) During this time period (1890-1940) Gay New York was transformed from an alternative world of diverse sexual options to a hegemonic discourse of the hetero-homosexual dichotomy. Shaped by working-class neighborhoods, a person’s sexual identity was shaped by the gender traits (receptive or penetrative, passive or active, “fairy” or masculine) of both partners (not by the sex of the chosen partner).